


Breathless

by tropicalgothic



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Hanahaki but cute, It's more of an awkward allergy than anything serious, no one dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25562584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tropicalgothic/pseuds/tropicalgothic
Summary: Rasa caught the love bug, and something inside him bloomed. Quite literally. He has a chest X-ray to prove it.
Relationships: Karura/Rasa (Naruto)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12
Collections: Naruto Multishippers Anonymous, Naruto Rare Pair Haven





	Breathless

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this fic came with [thatshipcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipcat/pseuds/shipcat) and I bouncing ideas together for a Flowershop AU turned Hanahaki AU. She also gave this fic it's title and approved of the summary <3 Highly highly recommend, go read her works!

It started with a congested nose that masked her perfume as she passed by. 

Then, it tickled the back of his throat whenever he tried to say something helpful like “There are, ahem, more terrariums at the back,” Rasa tried to suppress the cough, “they’re rather popular with most of our customers.”

Now, he had all this breath trapped in his chest because it hurt to let it go.

It hurt worst whenever she smiled.

“Oh, I saw those! They look absolutely beautiful,” her hair was a sunflower yellow that turned everyone’s gaze, and a blush that reminded him of a light strawberry stain. “I was looking for something more, ah, kitchen-garden friendly?”

“Yeah, ah— hem, like strawberries—“

“Excuse me?”

Shit, he didn’t sell strawberries. Uh— “Cherries.” He also didn’t sell cherries. “I mean— cherry tomatoes. Kitchen friendly, like cherry tomatoes. I can take you to them— Ma’am.”

“I don’t—,” She laughed— and suddenly, Rasa didn’t mind looking so foolish. “I don’t know if I have room for tomatoes— but I’ll think about that one. Would you have herbs though? Something small that I can put near a window.”

“Sure, sure!” That’s when he started feeling something terribly wrong in his throat, in his chest. Rasa nodded towards the other side of the store. “They’re on that side— no one’s here so I’ll be with you in a moment I just—“

The air felt wrong. It felt heavy, thick. Solid, even.

Rasa excused himself to the stock room and forced the breath off his chest. He had expected, as most would have, a gross yellowish blob and a future taking pneumonia medicine that made his stomach churn.

Instead, on his hand lay a single white flower bud.

…But he wasn’t holding—

“Are you okay?” Her voice was too close behind him.

“Yes!” Rasa spun. Tossed the bud. Somewhere. 

“Do you want me to call someone?”

He gave his best awkward smile. “No, sorry, it’s just a cough. Ahem. Spring allergies.” He looked at his hands and quietly added. “I’ll just wash up, then I’ll be right with you.”

In the end, she bought three pots for a dollar each— basil, mint, and rosemary.

“They’re good starters,” Rasa commented, as he helped her pack them into her bag. “If you want, ah—“ don’t cough “I can tell you how to propagate them, ahem, when they get bigger.”

“Wouldn’t you lose profit if you tell me your propagation secrets?” She laughed, and Rasa forgot to breathe all over again. Then, she added a teasing, “Or am I just special?”

“Yeah,” oh shit, “I mean——“

“Don’t worry,” she took her purchase and nodded her head towards the tomatoes. “I’m still thinking about those. And you better get that cough checked out.”

She exited the shop, and a heavy breath fell from Rasa’s lips.

And another white bud.

x.X.x

Rasa stood patiently in front of the clinic viewing box where his chest x-ray hung under the scrutiny of his doctor, and his older brother. The physician, a blonde haired man who looked young enough to still be in college, tapped at a patch of white in the x-ray. “That’s——“

“That’s a fucking flower,” Ryozen laughed, and smacked Rasa in the back. “Look Rasa, it’s—“

“Yes, yes, I can see it,” Rasa said, trying not to see it; trying not to feel the crawl of some lung-plant’s tendrils in his throat. “We’re all looking at the same x-ray.”

He certainly didn’t expect the cough to be because of this.

The first doctor Rasa saw, an old gruff gentleman, asked few questions, listened to his chest, and scribbled down something in his prescription pad before Rasa got to the part where he coughed out a little white bud. They were always little white buds. He even brought a sample of one in his pocket.

The cough only got worse the week after. Nothing else occupied his thoughts except for that itch at the back of his throat— that, and discovering that the girl with the sunflower hair took the same route he did to get to the grocery store. They never spoke, of course. It would be improper to approach her in the train like that.

He did not even know her name.

The cough continued, and Rasa visited a second doctor. This time, he was interrogated until he fumbled, and couldn’t remember if the itch started 2 or 3 weeks ago. When the doctor pointed out that he hadn’t been coughing this whole consult, Rasa wondered if he had imagined the whole ordeal.

_Come back again once you have that chest X-ray done. But are you sure it was a flower?_

Well, it was a fucking flower. Right in his lungs.

“It certainly looks that way,” the doctor said, uncertainly. “Pneumonia tends to be less…”

“Floral,” Ryozen interjected.

It was Rasa’s turn to elbow his brother. Lightly. He didn’t want to be rude in a doctor’s office.

“There have been, although extremely rare, cases of a swallowed seed growing in the lungs…” Rasa heard but couldn’t listen to what the young doctor was explaining. He wondered if he had been spending too much time in the flower shop. Had he broken protocol and eaten near the plants? Had he eaten a plant? He certainly doesn’t recall choking on something recently— he would have remembered that.

“Sir Rasa?”

He looked up and both his brother and the doctor were staring at him. “Sorry,” he cleared his throat. “Could you run it by me again? I must have—“

“That’s alright,” the doctor was already scribbling something on a set of papers, “We’ll need a few more tests to get a better look at it. And I know I’ve asked this before, but I just need to clarify.” The doctor handed the last of the papers to Ryozen. “Is there something that makes the coughing worse?”

Rasa paused to think. As he did, he noticed the doctor’s blonde hair and remembered his last coughing fit came when he stepped out of the subway and was recognized. She said nothing when their eyes met. But she smiled and waved to him before turning the opposite direction; before he managed to choke out four whole flowers.

“You’re not going to believe me.”

x.X.x

Rasa tucked the papers neatly into a folder labeled “Tests to do”, right behind the brown folder that held his X-ray and finally let out a sigh. That consult felt longer than 30 minutes.

“You could have just bought her flowers, Rasa. Coughing up your own might not work with the ladies.”

“You’re not allowed to come with me to the next appointment anymore.”

“You’re going to miss me and you know it,” Ryozen threw an arm around his brother, “Come. We’ll get some plant-free burgers on the way home.”

“I actually have to stop by a friend’s place to pick up a few orders for the shop.”

“Okay, but after lunch. We wouldn’t want you swallowing another—“

Rasa waited until they were past the hospital doors before he punched Ryozen playfully on the shoulder.

x.X.x

The orchid, with its delicate pink petals, bowed into a perfect arch over a white porcelain plate. Its roots curled around the polished stones that lay on its feet. Beside the orchid arrangement was a ruby red rose that danced ballet in stillness. Surrounding the rose, two large calla lilies extended into the air, like arms; the black pot stood as the legs of the arrangement, in a perfect triangular tiptoe. The furthest from Rasa was a set of blue flowers at the tip of a branch reaching into the clouds.

Rasa never understood why Sasori didn’t consider his floral arrangements art. He would never mention that though. He still hasn’t forgotten the first, and last time Sasori monologued about it for a whole afternoon. Rasa had to stop his friend before the white board rolled out.

“Are you getting them or not?”

“I am,” Rasa said, “I was just admiring them.” And wondered if she’d come by the flower shop again; he wondered if she liked flowers. Just as quickly as the thought came to him, the itch at the back of his throat summoned another coughing fit.

“Don’t cough on my flowers,” Sasori took a step away from him. “Someone will catch your germs and then no one will buy them. Do you have the money?”

The image of the X-ray flashed in his mind, and the distinct white buds close to the center. “I don’t think it’s contagious.” Rasa hoped it wasn’t.

“It sounds contagious,” Sasori whipped out a bottle of alcohol and insisted on spraying Rasa’s hands before he gave Sasori the payment for the arrangements.

“It’s---“ Rasa’s eyes wandered to the folder poking out of his bag. “Complicated. The doctor’s appointment didn’t give a lot of answers either. Just more—— hey—“

Next thing he knew, the folder was out of his bag, and Sasori was leafing through the tests. “Don’t tell me you caught a pneumonia.” He finally found the X-ray.

“Sasori—“ He reached for the folder.

Sasori ducked; slid away. “Have you been taking care of yourself?” Sasori took a sharp turn by the piano. 

He was small, but was quick on his feet. Rasa felt like a large, lumbering fool just trying to catch up.

“Give it ba—“

“It’s all the late night studying, isn’t it?” Sasori ducked below the table with the three flowers; Rasa almost fell face first into the table. “You should learn to speed read so you have enough time to sleep.” He took the X-ray out of the folder.

Shone it to the light.

And then stopped.

It gave Rasa enough time to catch his breath, and take the X-ray back from Sasori. “Like I said,” Rasa quietly arranged the files back into their proper order. “It’s complicated.”

“It’s f—“

“Don’t say floral. I know it’s a flower.”

“From love-sickness.” Sasori walked towards Rasa, looking anywhere but at him. “From a love unreturned. And it grows somewhere, and festers there until the love is returned.” He stopped in front of Rasa and finally looked up at him with an almost devilish smirk on his face. “Who might be the object of these unreturned affections, Rasa?”

Rasa’s cheeks turned a bright pink. “No one,” the image of the girl with the sunflower hair waiving at him in the subway flashed through his head, and it took everything in him. Not. To cough. “No unreturned affections. I am afflicted with an unrelenting cough--- that doesn’t make me part of some fairy tale rom com”

“You look about as stiff as most leading men in the first few scenes of a rom com,” but Sasori shrugged and extended his hand out for the payment. “So, what’s she like?”

Rasa found himself in the middle of another coughing fit, while Sasori nodded his head approvingly. “I wonder where you met this girl. Someone I know?”

“I doubt,” Rasa took a deep breath, as deep as he could before his chest ached from taking too much in. “I don’t know her name.”

“You what?” He laughed. “And you’re like this for a girl you don’t— have you even spoken to her?”

“Once,” Rasa mumbled.

“Oh— now, you sound like a heroine in a Disney princess movie,” Sasori spied the envelope with his payment in Rasa’s breast pocket. “I’ll be taking that.” He snatched it, as he did the folder, and made his way towards his workshop. “You should ask her out.”

Rasa was still out of breath from their earlier chase, and coughing that followed.

Sasori stuck his head out of the doorway, “After you figure out what her name is. Maybe get rid of that cough if you’re lucky.”

Rasa sighed and moved to follow Sasori into this workshop. “Since when did you become a lung-flower expert?”

He followed Sasori through the doorway, and into a garden that the sunlight couldn’t touch. The vines have crawled over the window; leaves grew from the cracks in the walls; flowers made their homes over the shelves and cabinets. In a corner of the room was a table, and a chair, untouched by the plants— the only corner untouched by the plants. On the table was a block of wood, half-sculpted.

His heart sank.

In another corner, Sasori was tearing at the vines, and rummaging for something.

“Is that really the only cure?” Rasa touched one of the flowers, a deep purple one looking down from the ceiling. There were small golden ones growing from the wooden floors. “To be loved in return?”

Sasori shrugged. “That might be easier for you,” he pulled out a brown bottle of medicine. “I can’t bring my dead parents back to life— but I heard that they perform surgeries for this in another country. Expensive but worth it, I suppose.” He handed Rasa the medicine bottle. “This should stop the coughing. Took some trial and error, but I found a formulation that worked.”

Rasa found himself with no other words than a quiet, “Thank you,” as he accepted the bottle.

An uneasy silence bloomed in the room.

“That’s not free, Rasa. I’m saving up for a surgery.”

x.X.x

It had been a slow day at the flower shop and that allowed Rasa some time to bury his head into the cases he had to read for the week. Recently, their professor had been in a sour mood. He didn’t want to be one of the unlucky ones caught unprepared for recitation.

A little bell rang when the door opened. Rasa saw a shadow where the flowers were, and decided to leave the customer to go through the shop by themselves. He could just finish this one paragraph before assisting—

“Good morning—-“ That voice.

Rasa jumped from his seat; his red pen clattered to the floor; she jumped back in surprise as well. “I’m sorry— Ma’am— Yes—- I mean, how may I help you?”

He had been taking the medicine Sasori gave religiously and Rasa no longer felt the tickle of a cough at the back of his throat. But the air was thick, heavy, and suffocating with every breath. Shit— what did she say?

“Sorry?”

“I just wanted to ask how much the white flowers cost,” she laughed, a touch of pink on her cheeks. “I looked at the pot and didn’t see a label or a price.”

“White flowers?” Rasa tried to think back to the ones he got from Sasori, and then to the older ones he still had on display. He couldn’t remember a white one. “I’ll check it out.”

“It’s here,” she led the way— except instead of going to where all the flowers were displayed, she took a turn towards the stock room. “I don’t actually know if it’s for sale, since it’s away from everything else,” she explained, “but— is it?”

Rasa took a closer look at the familiar flower, lonely in the dark with a set of empty pots beside it. “Oh—“ Those were _his_ flowers. They… grew. They actually grew. But what does he say?

“I— Actually, these are—“

“A bit on the expensive side,” the voice came from behind them. They turned and Ryozen was there, back from the University and peeking at the flower from behind them. “But we have discounts lined up next week. You should come back for it then.”

“Professor!” she perked up upon seeing— wait. “Sir, I didn’t know you shopped here.”

Wait. A. Minute. What discount. What expensive— this wasn’t even in the catalogue. What— They know each other? Rasa stared at his brother, and then turned to the girl, and then back to his brother.

“I don’t actually,” Ryozen laughed, smooth, like he wasn’t in the middle of the most confusing situation. Of course, his brother wasn’t. He was. “But my little brother works here.”

“You’re siblings?” She looked at him, expectantly.

“Your student?” Rasa stared at his brother, willing this silent exchange to deliver a hundred different questions about the situation they were in.

“Former student,” Ryozen, on the other hand, didn’t even glance at him and seemed absolutely unfazed. “Karura wrote an exceptional essay on decolonization and travel writing. I remember giving that a perfect mark.”

A hundred different questions about the situation they were in raced through Rasa’s head— and they all came to a screeching halt at the mention of— “Karura?”

“Yes?” She looked up at him, smiling, like she didn’t know that she was bright sunflowers and soft strawberries to him until today.

Rasa opened his mouth— but nothing came.

“As I was saying, my dear,” Ryozen interjected, leading Karura towards the front desk. “We are going to have a sale on selected items next week. Different days; different plants on sale. I know Monday would be the succulents, but I’m sure that flower is going to have its day. Why don’t you write us down your number and we’ll let you know when it’s sale day.”

Rasa watched his brother find a blank piece of paper for Karura to write in and thought— a number. He could get her number. He remembered Sasori nudging him to ask her out; he remembered the only cure; he could still feel the heavy air settling uncomfortably in his chest.

It tasted… almost like guilt.

“Here, Rasa,” Ryozen handed him the folded piece of paper, and winked. “Lunch is on the counter. I just have one more thing to do—- Ciao.” He waved, and off he was— gone as quickly as he appeared.

“Um,” Karura shyly came up to him, and pointed to the small pot of cherry tomatoes, a small bud about to wake up. “I’ll get that instead, but I’ll come back for the other one next week.”

Rasa looked at the paper in his hands, and then at the small white flowers blooming in the dark storage room.

“I think,” Rasa took the pot of white blossoms, and held it out into the light. “You should have this.”

“Oh— yes, next week. You have my number. I’ll come back when——“

“I think my brother just,” did his best to give me a shot at this, “misremembered the dates. We don’t have a sale next week. But this flower isn’t actually for sale.”

“Then, I can’t—“

“It’s mine,” Rasa insisted, “And you can have it.”

“Oh, if it’s yours then—“

“Please.” Rasa moved behind the table, placed the pot on the shelf, and pulled out the catalogue of plants they had for sale. “It’s not in the plants we have for sale—“ He showed her, flipping through the pages of flowering plants. No small white blossoms. “I tossed it into one of the containers before and didn’t expect it to bloom. I didn’t even notice it before you mentioned it. It must be meant for you.”

She looked up at him, trying to gather the right words. “Are you sure? I don’t want to take something that’s—“

“I’m sure,” Rasa was already placing the plant into a small plastic. “You take good care of it. Oh and——“ and then he handed her back the folded piece of paper. “You should keep this too. I’m sorry— there really is no sale.”

The whole world turned quiet as a whisper when she reached out for the paper, and her fingers brushed against his. And his heart skipped a beat. And his lungs forgot to breath. And she—

Karura smiled at him— not only with the curl of her lips, but with the brightness of her blue-violet eyes. Stunning gems that Rasa only noticed now.

“Thank you.”

And just like that, Rasa remembered to breathe again. They said nothing else to each other then, as Karura struggled to collect the plant, and Rasa moved to help her, and she laughed and neither of them really remembered how to stop smiling.

“I should go,” she nodded towards the door. “My brother’s waiting for me.”

“Goodbye,” Rasa saw her to the door and—— wait, was that his doctor? The blonde haired young man with… oh, never mind.

He closed the door, and still couldn’t remember how to stop smiling. Truth be told, he was quite ready to close the whole shop right about now. As far as Rasa was concerned, it’s already been the best day of his life so far. That’s when he noticed a piece of paper sticking out of the catalogue of plants. Had he accidentally folded a page?

Rasa didn’t. Slipped in between the pages with a small blank sheet of paper with a phone number scribbled on it, and a message—

“Text me if anything blooms here. Karura.”

For the first time since he’s met her, the air was light in his chest.


End file.
